Tis the season! Tomorrow we celebrate Thanksgiving with my mom’s side of the family, an every other year occurance and an occasion always looked forward to. We’ll be missing our girl, but time with cousins is always cherished…especially the older we get. Thankfully the weather has turned over the past two days and we’ll be having some warmer temperatures to be out and about. Thanksgiving has been my most favorite holiday for a great many years now, less stress than Christmas, more time to sit and visit and just be with the ones we love.

Have been attempting to get back into writing, however I’m shot at the end of most days and the thought of getting out the computer seems like way too much work. Tomorrow begins four days off, planning on talking myself into sitting down and making plans for a routine to be able to get more accomplished at the end of the school day. Things are getting easier though, the weekdays don’t seem to feel as long although the weekends seem to feel shorter. It’s be days since I’ve come home and had a bit of a sip to top off a stressful day, has to be a plus!

Feeling as though my boys and I have been making progress lately. I have three boys whom are my main priority at school, aide to one and helper to the other two…have taken to calling them my boys. Of course I help all the teachers of whom I’m in class with and have really bonded with most of the kids. Had one boy with a broken heart today, he came to me and I was really touched…he wasn’t one of my boys. Have to say I smile most of each day. Have made some great friends with the other aides and some of the teachers. Living in such a small community and being in a small school district is really a blessing in so many ways.

Last week has a great break through with one of my boys. K really struggles with reading, the beginning of the year I’d have to tell him almost every word when we’d be reading together, last week he read an entire page in his lit circle book with only having to be helped with one word! He was so proud and I was so proud for him! This week C has been more willing to get to work when he doesn’t want to, actually putting in a bit more effort than usual. E and I still have our daily struggles, he likes to try and find a way to get a person’s goat…he’s a good kid though…just likes to be a stinker. All three are getting better at writing smaller and neater! Small steps, yes!?

Was really touched today…put together a small treat for each of the boys for Thanksgiving…nothing big, some small candy bars, gum and pencils…the smile on their faces just melted my heart. I’d had the opportunity to take the boys from study hall to a classroom with only a couple kids and an aide working on some late work, the boys dumped their little boxes out to dig through the handful of things, swapped with one another what they liked most and the cherry on top was when they bombarded me with hugs! Those boys! These boys aren’t the hugging kind either.

The absolute best part of the day…lining up with the little kids to dismiss at the end of the day. One of the boys gave me a note that his grandma was picking him and his little brother up at the dismissal gate…I recognized the last name and asked if R was their grandpa..yes, R is their grandpa and then the little kindergarten aged boy said…is Bart your dad? I stiffled a laugh and said no, he’s my brother, Terry is my dad…the older brother said, I know him! Absolutely made my day! Mom laughed and laughed, Brother Bear wasn’t quite as amussed and said he’d be giving their dad a hard time in return! Love small town life!

Finally feeling as though I’m getting enough of the hang of working outside the house that I may be able to get back to writing and reading some blogs again. Still working on getting my inner clock changed around, guessing after over 20 years of being a night owl that it’s going to take more than a couple months to become not so much of a night owl.

Have really taken to doing this whole teachers aide thing. I work mainly with three sixth graders, but help out with the entire class as needed. Also have lunch duty with sixth through eighth grades, study hall with about a dozen sixth graders and after school recess with preschool through fifth grade…thankfully there are three of us doing the after school recess, those littles are dolls but take a lot of energy.

Learning a lot in the sixth grade, things that I either no longer remember learning or things that are new to me…guessing a little of both. Social Studies and PE are pry my favorite at the moment, something I definitely wouldn’t have said in sixth grade. In Social Studies we are learning about different cultures, next week the kids start a project where they learn about the cultures in which they came from…sounds fun but with my three boys, the thought makes my head start to throb…hard headed them and hard headed me…we have our moments where we butt heads so to speak. The trobbing head comes from knowing the project has to be done on Google Slides and the last project I helped with having to use Google Slides, yeah….I can’t do Google Slides, give me a piece of paper or poster board!

A few days ago the kiddos had to run the mile in PE. Want to confuse sixth graders? Call PE, Phys Ed…they will argue until you explain it’s short for physical education and thus PE… Watching these kids stress for days about the upcoming mile run reminded me of the same stress knowing that damn run was coming up. These kids had it easy though, Mr. S let them walk a bit as needed, we weren’t allowed to stop jogging or we started over. Times have changed. Also Mr. S ran with them, Mr. C never ran with us. That had to have been a good feeling for the kids to have the teacher join them. I walked a half mile during their run and tried to help encourage them to keep it up.

Lunch may be my favorite time of day…have made some great friends amongst the teachers and aides and enjoy 30 minutes of laughter and swapping stories with other adults. It’s still kind of odd to be working with people who went to school with our oldest, two graduated with and a few only in the few years before she graduated. Some days it makes me feel a bit old but the kids have assured me that I am somewhere between the age of 1 and 99…so guessing I can be whatever age I choose.

The house has taken a toll since I’ve begun working at the school. Spent most of the day today cleaning and washing bedding and dishes…swear the dishes are never done. Starting to feel like some progress is being made. Bubba and I went out a few days ago to finish picking all the gourds and pumpkins, today Old Boy took the tractor and mower and knocked everything down. Had hoped to get the flower garden done this weekend but we’ve been hit by a cold front accompanied by an ugly wind…hopefully we’ll be able to get it done before winter hits. We’ve already had snow…the earliest I’ve ever seen, so who knows when winter will hit.